Stage 3 B8 S4 vs. Stage 2+ B8 S4...what is the true delta?

B8 S4
#1

I think the elephant in the room is that Magnuson or whoever is behind the B8 S4 3.0T stage 3 kit rushed this release.

Anyone know why? I think I do.

I think it has a lot to do with jones2012S4 and his dual pulley setup. Jones ran his stage 2 GIAC B8 S4 on race gas this summer in not so great density altitude, and set a new B8 S4 at 11.53 @ 121 MPH. Only it wasn’t stage 2 GIAC. It was stage 2 GIAC + an overdrive crank pulley, whose larger size means the stock TVS1320 supercharger is bring driven even faster than stage 2 proper. I call it stage 2+. Jones didn’t call it anything because he wanted it kept secret. Unfortunately for him people talked, so his secret is out. The good news is that it seems to provide a significant boost delta and power delta over the standard stage 2 cars. Resulting in what looks to be 30-40 hp gained based on his top end. The fastest GIAC cars trapped 118-119 in great DA…but jones trapped 121 in +1500 feet. That’s pretty significant.

If he runs his car on his lightweight wheels and tire setup (rather than the heavy setup he had on) and in 0 feet of density altitude, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him run 11.3X @ 123 MPH.

I think Magnuson and their band of authorized dealers recognized that the TVS1320 with a crank overdrive pulley and a smaller supercharger pulley would cut the delta gained by going stage 3 to almost negligible levels, and they recognized the financial danger and rushed it out.

It’s not a coincidence that jones had everyone who knew about his mod on ziploc mouths for a month after he set the record, and all was quiet in stage 3 land…but once everyone figured out what it was (including Arin @ APR) the stage 3 kit suddenly exploded onto the scene.

Stage 2+ is a major threat to the viability of the Stage 3 kit. I think the sooner the B8 S4 owners recognize this, the sooner people will be saved from wasting 20% of the price of a brand new S4 on the stage 3 kit.

THIS is why they released summer quartermile times, and didn’t wait to run great times in the fall
THIS is why they released it even though multiple stage 3 cars are getting crushed by stage 2 cars
THIS is why they are in full on panic mode

Any thoughts?

#2

I have one… I can’t wait to get my crank pulley on… LOL!

Seriously, though like I said in the other thread interesting theroy… Could be true but I think there is probably more variables/dynamics at play here… Based on what I’ve read/seen on stage III, IAT’s are the biggest problem so I’ll be curious how mine looks with the added boost and if I have enough headroom to use it before bypass occurs… Not sure I’d advise dual pulley’s, in summer heat, with crappy 91 octane… Jones sprays w/m so he’s good and I barely drive the car so I think I’m good to. lol

#3

I think there is more at play also. I’d be surprised if they really cared about Jones’ times honestly. I think Magnusson had invested a lot in the project both on their end, with whatever agreement they had with Eaton, and with whatever they were left with when APR bailed. It likely got to the point that some bean counter type at Magnusson looked at the numbers and where the project was, and made a push to get something out to recoup some on their investment. The bean counter type was likely some executive or finance type that was oblivious to what was going on with this specific platform.

I am sure there were people at Magnusson/APR that were well aware of the issues/limitations. I think the same bean counter types probably gave an ultimatum to said people to get it out ASAP at under $10k. They did that, but also went into it knowing what they were up against (probably much to the frustration of some involved). At the same time, they knew people would buy it, and most would just think it was faster/better because of what it is.

I’ve been involved in the release of hundreds of high tech products, and rarely did what a competitor was doing become the sole reason for how or why or when we released something. There were always a lot more market forces at work, and an internal dynamic at play beyond that. It usually came down to an executive or finance type pushing for something to get released ASAP to meet a customer or financial commitment, a project manager pushing engineering to make it happen, engineering getting pissed because it wasn’t ready, marketing trying to figure out how to deal with something that wasn’t ready, and then the sales/service dealing with the aftermath while it circles back to engineering to fix something that shouldn’t have been released in the first place.

What I don’t completely understand is why Magnusson released it the way they did. As I mentioned before, that seems like a complete miss on their part. Both in terms of what they released, who they released it to, and how it was marketed. I get the idea that they were basically forced to release something that wasn’t completely ready (been there, done that), but don’t make it harder on yourself…

You can go back and read my long winded take in the other thread on where the kit is now (basically worthless), and where I think it can go (still some hope with the right supporting mods, but not for anywhere close to $10k).

#4

I really think this was a decision made by Magnuson alone to release the kit prematurely. I don’t believe APR was in agreement with them but they are forced to provide support to Magnuson where they can, and essentially keep their mouths shut about it which is what they’ve been doing for the most part.

#5

^^^ this

#6

I’ll add this too… I’ve mentioned this before, but my perspective is probably different than a lot of people. I worked for a company for almost 15 years that pretty much released half-ass ready products on a regular basis, and for the last 10 years there my sole responsibility was to solve every technical problem and a lot of commercial issues (I had a team of 5-10 people that worked for me doing this, but at the end of the day, it was on me).

Probably half of my time was spent resolving problems with products that were released waaaay before they were ready just like this. All of them out of beta, but not ready for general public consumption. The idea that something like this could happen is completely normal in my world. What I am usually more curious to see is how they respond or deal with the issues moving forward. That tells me a lot more about the product and the company supporting it. Either way, it takes a lot of work by the support teams and engineering to dig out of the hole when you do it this way…

#7

I think you’re contradicting yourself (not on purpose, but let me explain).

Why is your company releasing half assed products?

To meet a product cycle.

Why?

To keep up with their competitors.

Why did the Apple phones not work when you hold them (funny when you say that out loud)? Because they were pushed by the samsung product cycle. They fixed it by buying you a phone case. Which was retarded. Why didn’t they just hold off? Nobody would release a half assed product without an outside influence driving it.

That is rarely the market. Nobody prematurely released an APR stage 3 kit in 2014 for no reason. They did it in 2015 because stage 2+ is a very real problem for stage 3.

#8

APR probably wanted to scrap it…that was pretty pbviousl…and again like someone else mentioned I’m curious of Arin even runs the kit anymore on his car. If not, that speaks pretty loudly.

#9

Not at all. The key there is it’s not the “sole” reason a product gets released. The fact is there are always several factors that lead to a product getting released before it’s ready. Financial and customer commitments, market demands, competition, engineering and manufacturing delays, etc. All of those factors can play some role. It’s not usually just one of those. In this case, I feel pretty confident it was a financial commitment issue more than anything else. We’ll never know for sure, but I’m guessing whoever pushed this at Magnusson didn’t know anything about the times Jones ran.

#10

I’ve heard Arin doesn’t run the kit on his car anymore.

How’s that…that pretty telling?

#11

(sorry this reponse was delayed 20 minutes by some bastard disturbing my “personal work” time looking for signitures, it should have been posted after Richi lol)

^^^which this Richi? I’m assuming jran…to which I agree. and CrownSeven too.

Internally, something sitting for so long with bad results are awful to work on, as an engineer. Especially when those results are blowing up motors and costing the company money - fingers are being pointed, goals and timelines are not met. Hell they couldn’t even make up an user installation manual like they do with everything else.

Likely as jran said, an individual, likely at Magnuson, was pushing the release and wouldn’t take no as an answer, nor accept any additional purchases. So everyone did the safest and least expensive thing - 1.) no uprated fuel pump 2.) crappy plastic reservoir 3.) safest tuning possible 4.) mild pulley.

Everything is going through APRs networks, so they are the ones getting paid. So it would seen that APR is the ones who agreed to something like a settlement with Magnuson, as everyone suggests, so the bills get paid.

They gave a LOT of leeway on the price - not that $9K is cheap, but in the world of the aftermarket german tax - it was way below anyone’s guesses - a stripper 1740 blower kit.

#12

Sak, our company releases half-assed products because we are to meet a cost and time deadline. I agree, seldom does the competition factor get into it - the only consideration with the competition is generally the pricing.

#13

So if Arin was tired of the kit blowing his motor, I wonder why it’s now ok to sell the kit for customers to blow motors. Apparently the power goals APR had could not be accomplished safely… That makes this kit a huge fucking fail and they are trying to bone people and make some cash back…very sad.

#14

Why is the time deadline imposed?

It’s not because your competition is sitting idle, thus you can too.

You guys are arguing deadlines and time as a ‘reason’ but it’s not. It’s the result of a reason, or a bunch of reasons.

Anyway, this is just my opinion. You guys come up with something better I’m all ears. ‘some guy probably wanted it pushed out’ is again, not a reason. It’s the result of a reason.

I think they saw a rapidly closing window in which a modest delta over stage 2 was sellable for $9,000.

Closing because stage 2+ showed up to spoil the party.

And as for cost, it’s 10,000 but on sale for 9. And unfortunately that doesn’t seem to add much if any delta. So for that you will need to spend another $1000-1500 on the Apr ‘upgraded’ pulley, and whp knows maybe fuelling too at that point.

Jhm was in beta on one of their supercharger kits and ended up adding to the kit for effectiveness, adding about 15% to the cost. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen here.

The difference being nobody even knew the jhm kit existed or that a couple of customers were beta testing…and it was still a year or so before it was even announced.

As opposed to doing a product launch and taking payment for said product, and then two weeks later installing it on your ‘beta testers’ cars. Richi just got it 2 weeks ago lol. He wasn’t even a beta tester yet when all the launch threads came out.

#15

It is pretty common in large companies to have business managers set goals with aggressive deadlines on new products. The lower level engineers get a lot pressure to hit those dates, so their manager can get the bonus for completing the unreasonable goals on schedule.

Most hard deadlines I have seen have been either set by a large customer requirement or goals committed by upper management. Competitors timelines generally have very little to deal with it.

#16

Another ‘it’s a deadline that caused the deadline’ comment? Anyway I think a few of you are missing the point.

Let me make it simple…any of you have experience in the car tuning game? Any of you ever observe the product release patterns in the car tuning game? Doesn’t look like it.

Let me help.

Car tuners absolutely release products in anticipation and in direct timeline competition with their competitors.

Let’s refresh our memories. Right here on this site we saw that an APR employee shared that another APR employee had one of their dealers steal REVO code so that APR could match their release of the same product.

That ringing any bells with you corporate guys :slight_smile: ?

We have also seen stage 1 and 2 B8 S4 tunes rushed out that flat didn’t work…all because APR, Revo and GIAC were trying to keep up with each other.

We saw the same thing on the B67 S4.

We saw the same thing on the B7 RS4, both with the tunes, and then the exhausts, and then the supercharger kits.

We saw the same thing with the B5 S4, first with stage 1 tunes…Then stage 2 tunes, then stage 3 kits.

So if you guys wouldn’t mind putting your corporate experience aside for a minute, and focus on the tuners that would be great.

Although much of what has been said about corporate deadlines is that your deadline is not driven by competition but instead is just a deadline…with some of you seemingly forgetting why senior management made it a deadline lol. Also seems three of you are engineers, rather than senior management who are actually making these decisions on time lines. Ever think they’re not telling you everything?

#17

Information can go up the chain and down the chain, if the sales and marketing reps saw a window closing they would definitely give input. That window was closing fast with stage 2 cars continuing to pick up trap speed. APR tried to kill this whole kit, that is obvious, but Magnuson refused to eat that and it was release it now or never basically.

We can probably all agree that it wasn’t one single thing that spurred this half assed supercharger fire sale, but I think Jones’ time was definitely a tipping point.

#18

Let’s talk about this more. I see a delta.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/10/01/77b473b15ec6da47ec4a9b1d4df785b6.jpg

#19

is that picture from Ohio?

[quote=“Jspazz,post:18,topic:7909”]
Let’s talk about this more. I see a delta.

http://images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/10/01/77b473b15ec6da47ec4a9b1d4df785b6.jpg

#20

Lol! I’m a white and blue colored dress shirt kind of guy… Nothing as snazzy as what j’s pimpin ;D

Mine will be here Sat. Didn’t do overnight shipping, I’m a cheap ass… Lol I have some other new parts but I’ll save those pictures for when I have data to share…